Wednesday, April 29, 2015

You'd think for someone who's spent the past four years immersed in books and essays, writing a blog post like this would be super easy... but, alas. Apparently I've been missed, however, in my last four months of unintended hiatus, so here I am, back again on the blog, after having finished the final term of my undergraduate career/degree/what-have-you. *throws confetti*

I've just realized that since I started this blog in my first year, it's been that long for "i.e.Jessie" as well. Actually, I think I missed the fourth-year anniversary. How strange! I'm kind of proud of myself for having stuck with something for so long. I know I always make mention of "new things" coming up on the blog, or such-and-so improvements or projects, or whatever, and now that I no longer have school as an excuse to fall back on, we'll see how it goes.

This blog post was meant to just be a sort of "catching up on life" sort of deal, what I've been in to or up to lately, and so on. Let's just focus on the past and present for now, because at the moment, my future is kind of blurry. Now that I'm finished with school (for now, anyway), I've had to field multiple queries that run along the lines of "so, what are you doing now?", but really, it's anyone's guess. I've made do with the simple reply of "oh, just job-hunting..." because how am I supposed to detail my life plan to you, really. Even if I can't properly say that I have no idea (because happily, I do, or at least some semblance of one), it's hard to describe my life aspirations to well-meaning adults, you know?

Anyway, in the vein of "monthly favourite" edits, I thought I'd just share what I've been enjoying in the time I've been away...

THE "OTHER" CATEGORY

Starting off with the miscellaneous...

David's Tea / Unfortunately, not pictured above, but I've been really enjoying it since coming home, I think I was drinking 5 cups a day at one point! At least I'm getting my water intake?

Skincare Routine / Now that I'm no longer stressing about school (finals seasons broke out indeed... on my forehead -_-), I'm determined to improve my skin, and thus have decided that skincare is indeed super important! I'm actually writing a blog post about skincare next, based on a request from a friend, so stay tuned~

Clearing Out Clutter / There's nothing like packing and unpacking all your things to make you decided that you simply have Too. Much. Stuff. It might be a bit too late to rightly call it 'spring cleaning' but throwing out stuff I don't need anymore is kind of a liberating feeling. (PS. If you're interested, I'm selling some of my old clothes on my Depop!)

READING LIST

Cloud Atlas / David Mitchell
A novel that consists of six interwoven stories, that according to the back of the book, "reveals how disparate people connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky"—I'm currently a third of the way in and quite enjoying it so far. I like the touch of whimsical mixed with the metaphysical. I know the movie for this came out about three years ago, and the trailer looked amazing, but I've been holding off until I finish reading this.

Paper Towns / John Green
By the same writer as The Fault in our Stars, this novel demonstrates the enigmatic nature of identity, and how people are not always who we think they are, all in a coming-of-age youth story and scavenger-hunt-type detective story rolled up into one. I picked this up as a break while having an essay pending the day afterwards and finished it in three hours, I couldn't put it down ahha. John Green's plots move very quickly so you have to fill in some parts of character parts of character development on your own sometimes, but his insights into the minds of people and life in general are rather profound. I'm a fan. Also, super excited to Cara Delevingne as Margo in the movie coming out soon!

The WORN Archive / (Edited by) Serah-Marie McMahon
The long title of this is A Fashion Journal About the Art, Ideas, and History Behind the Things We Wear—it's a collection of articles throughout the years from WORN Fashion Journal, an independent twice-yearly publication from Toronto, that seeks to offer opinions, insights, and discourse about fashion without the bias of advertisers. This was a Christmas present from my friend Catherine (shoutout to her blog, Hot Pepper Latte) and it's been quite the interesting read so far!

The Things They Carried / Tim O'Brien
Just had to include this one even though I read it for school—for an American lit course by one of my favourite profs. It's a collection of short stories about the Vietnam War, and Tim O'Brien does a masterful job of blurring the line between reality and fiction, and demonstrating the intrinsic value of a human being's existence. One of the books I got the most of from my major, for sure.

WATCH LIST

Can't have a "lately" post without waxing eloquent on what I've been filling my eyeballs with. Student life is as follows: if I'm not studying, I'm probably watching something. And now that I'm not a student anymore, and stuck at home, it seems as if I'm not "job-hunting", then I'm also likely to be watching something.

Korean Dramas

All of these dramas have something in common: I started watching on account of the male lead actor, haha.Pinocchio 피노키오 / starring Lee Jong-suk, Park Shin-hye
Lee Jong-suk was amazing in this drama about four rookie news reporters trying to find their footing in the world of journalism while staying true to their ideals of right and wrong. This drama's strength definitely lies also in its portrayal of family bonds in addition to the main romance (and had me tearing up at times!)

Kill Me, Heal Me 킬미, 힐미 / Ji Sung, Hwang Jung-eum, Lee Seo-joon
Ji Sung plays a man who, to deal with his childhood trauma, creates six different personalities and enlists Hwang Jung-eum, a psychiatrist to help "heal" him. Alternatively nerve-wracking and heartstring-pulling, with plenty of funny moments to balance out the mind-blowing plot twists, and a very satisfactory ending. Two thumbs up. (Also, Ji Sung better win an end-of-year award for his acting in this one!)

It's Okay, It's Love 괜찮아, 사랑이야 / Jo In-sung, Gong Hyo-jin, also Sung Dong-il and Lee Kwang-soo
I very much appreciated the insight into mental illnesses portrayed in this drama—although perhaps too whimsically handled at times, it provides a good opening for discussion to happen about mental health, especially in Korea where the stigma is huge. The people are very pretty to look at, and the side characters are hilarious. Not hugely emotionally wracking, this one, but still a very good watch.

TV Shows

Friends
I can totally blame Netflix for this one. I'm one episode away from the finale, and I started watching in January, so yes, effectively, I've seen these actors age ten years within four months. Voila, power of the internet. Friends is one of those 'classics' that I decided I had to watch because everyone else has seen it, and I like it for the light comedy that it is. Rachel, of course, is my favourite character.

Game of Thrones
I don't know how this didn't enter in my life sooner. I watched Seasons 1-4 last summer and was thusly mindblown, and consequently, have been anticipating Season 5 all throughout final year. If you haven't seen it already, highly recommend. Lots of court intrigue, attractive people, attractive personalities (and an equal amount of unattractive people/personalities, just saying),

Sherlock
Again, another show that I've heard many of my friends rave about, and thanks to Netflix, got to marathon all three seasons within about a month's time. Benedict Cumberbatch is the cherry on top of the icing. Plus, I enjoy shows that have an intelligence aspect to them, and can only hope for the best in terms of its influence exerted on me.

Next on the list: Downton Abbey (Season 4), Suits!

That's all for now, but I'm considering making these "Lately" posts more of a regular thing, even if I'm going back to blogging regularly. Regardless, it's nice to back, so see you in the next post!

Monday, December 22, 2014

Oh, The Hobbit. How do I even begin to describe the feels? This whole #OneLastTime thing got me feeling sentimental. In fact, this whole post might not even be a legit review and just err on the side of me ranting about how much I love Tolkien's brain... but we'll see.

I've got a couple of bones to pick with the movie, so warning, beware of spoilers, of which there are many in this post. :) Click to keep reading~

Sunday, November 23, 2014

(Maybe I should've titled this "Why Do I Blog?"... but meh, pronouns amirite.)

I know I've been away for ages, and I sort of did mention on my twitter that I was taking a blog hiatus-ish. It's just that it's nearly finals season, which means study grinding, all day errday! Not that you need to hear me whine about school... It's probably the most redundant thing to read from bloggers, because a) if you're a student, then you've got your own school work to worry about, and b) if you're finished school, then you're really finished with school, if you know what I mean!

Anyway, tangent aside, I decided to sit down and try to puke up a blog post (y'know, like word vomit? probably could've found a more appealing metaphor...) today as a reflection of my writing, or my life, or whatever.

My life as of late has been a clutter of normal highs and bewildering lows. Add school stressin' to that list, and cue "damn, what the hell am I doing with my life" mental crisis. So... I apologize if I'm not too coherent in this post. Like I said, word vomit. ;)

I've always viewed myself as a sort of writer. What I didn't know for sure, exactly, was how good I was. Of course, I've always put on my resume "excellent written communication skills" and that sort of thing, but it doesn't exactly count because I'm saying that about myself.

I've also always been aware that, career-wise, I wanted to go into something to do with my "talent" of writing. But as someone studying for a BA degree, and what's more, as an English major, I've been the butt of many jokes about how I'm to be a poor starving artist (re: UNEMPLOYED) upon graduation. Some of them were made by myself, because what is life if you can't laugh at yourself, or y'know, pretend to make a situation funny in order to distract from its horribly true and grim reality?

Okay, so I'm probably being pessimistic. And I didn't mean for this post turn into a long ramble about the struggles of figuring out life beyond graduation, but as you can see, it's been weighing quite heavily on my mind lately, haha.

So. Why do I blog?

I don't know if this is going to seem like a super belated conclusion, and I'm not fishing for compliments or anything, either... but to be honest, it always surprises/flatters me when people tell me "I write so well". Like people actually like my writing!/? It almost makes me feel validated as a writer, or even as a person, because I feel like maybe there is something about this whole writing career plan, after all. (Now I sort of feel like I just revealed part of my inner psyche to the world... #vulnerable)

Well, of course, the purpose of my blogging is not to get compliments from people. I blog simply because I like writing, and I guess it's almost part of human nature to want to put yourself out there, if only online. I'm rather introverted, and writing comes more easily to me than speaking by far.

Oh geez, maybe I should learn to make my rambles shorter, haha. (It can't be helped though, sometimes I just have a lot to say! And I've been rather silent on the blog lately, anyway.)

I also blog, because I want to record my life, and my thoughts. It's like keeping an online diary. What's more, I get to explore my interests through this blog. Writing is so versatile, and I love that I can use it as an avenue to talk/learn about things like fashion, or music, or whatever. (Plus, it makes for an easy answer when people ask the dreaded question about hobbies...)

Maybe I should've more aptly titled this post "Why Do You Write?", hahaha. But y'all catch my drift. More or less. And now I'm just not really making sense anymore, so I'll go back to studying now.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

So, I was curating @PeopleofKW on Twitter last week and on Monday, decided to blog everyday last week. Of course, you already know that it didn't quite turn out that way, because midterms happened. Again. But rejoice, midterms are now over and I've got two blissful (sort of) weeks before all the assignments and projects start piling up before the end of term. Fourth year of university is seriously no joke.

Remember how I used to shoot my own outfits and all that in the efforts of being a personal style blogger? Those were fun. (If you're interested in my #ootd's, by the way, check out my Instagram. Selfies are included free of charge.) I've been interested in starting those up again, although the logistical issues are always the worst -- camera, photographer, time. But in the meantime, I'm also seriously enjoying the wealth of outfit inspiration that is Tumblr.

Anyway, as long as I'm not further swamped with work this week, I'll be seeing you soon in my next post!